And the whole time he watches, his gaze flickering from his hand between my legs to my face, which I know is flushed by the way it burns.
“I need to taste you, Lexie,” he says, crooking a finger inside me. “Can I kiss you here?”
“God, yes,” I moan.
I don’t even have time to think about my poor choice of words before his mouth is on me. His tongue presses into my clit, and I cry out. I’m fairly certain my actual words are, “Oh, God!” because that’s pretty much my MO, but I can’t be sure. His fingers slip inside me, and I buck my hips and cry out again when he sucks. His moan totally unhinges me. He licks me as his wet fingers twist inside me, and I arch up and fight to remember how to breathe. His tongue playing over my clit sends sparks skittering over my skin, lighting me on fire. “Holy God!” I groan. He moans, low and deep, really more of a growl, and I prop up on my elbows so I can see him. His feral gaze connects with mine, and he holds my eyes as he swirls his tongue against my clit. I’m right on the edge of exploding into his mouth when he finally pulls away.
He leans over me, and I feel him hard against me through his pants. Why the hell didn’t I rip those things off when I had the chance?
His hands and mouth move over every inch of my body as if they’re trying to memorize me. He sucks my hard nipples—first the right, then the left. When his mouth finds mine, I can taste my arousal on his lips: salty and clean. He hesitates and trails a finger over the tattoo above my left breast as he kisses his way to my ear. “Lexie,” he breathes, “please tell me you have protection.”
I don’t. I’ve used all of Sam’s condoms for self-defense. I never expected … this. “I’m sorry.”
He pulls back and scowls down at the white collar on the floor. “I can’t very well walk into a pharmacy and buy condoms.”
I close my eyes, and my face pinches involuntarily. “I’m sorry,” I say again, and suddenly I realize it’s for more than the condoms.
I can’t do this.
My fingers go automatically to my tattoo as my heart under it crumbles. I love Trent. I will always love Trent. I can’t deny it, or hide from it, or pretend what happened between us didn’t matter. It did matter, and I can’t be with anyone else. I can’t have sex with Alessandro when I know what it feels like to make love to Trent.
I push Alessandro back and sit up, suddenly uber-conscious that I’m totally naked on my dining-room table with a half-dressed almost-priest hovering over me, his huge erection straining the fabric of his slacks.
“I’m sorry, Alessandro. I can’t do this.”
I slip off the table and disappear behind my bedroom door before he even has time to react. I’m afraid he’ll knock or call to me through the door.
He doesn’t.
A few minutes later, I’m still pressed against the door, holding my breath, when I hear my front door open, then click closed. I hear him on the stairs and hurry to my window. I watch as Alessandro pushes through the door to the street with his head down and strides quickly toward the corner. When he turns and flashes a glance over his shoulder toward my apartment, I catch a glimpse of his starched white collar, snugly in place, before he vanishes onto the main road.
I lean out the window a little farther, still watching after him. A little part of me hopes he’ll come back … that he’ll fight for me. He doesn’t, and when I back away from the window and look up, Grandma Moses is watching me from her balcony.
She glances to the corner where Alessandro just disappeared, then back at me, and her clucking sound carries across the street, echoing off the buildings for the whole city to hear as she tsks me. And that’s when I realize I’m still buck naked.
On Thursday, I text Abby and tell her I’m sick, so I won’t be in class. After class, she texts me my assignments.
On Friday, I text Abby and tell her I’m still sick, so I won’t be in class. After class, she texts me my assignments for Monday.
And then it’s finally Saturday.
I do the same thing I did on Thursday and Friday. I pull the sheet over my head and pretend my bed is a coffin. Pretending to be dead is a lot easier than living with what I’ve done.
Alessandro hasn’t called. His ordination is tomorrow, at Easter observance. I so want to talk to him … to know what he’s thinking. He’s one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met, and I’m afraid I just ruined his life.
What if I ruined his life?
I’m terrified to find out, so I don’t call him either.
But there is one thing I know for sure. I couldn’t be with Alessandro because I’m totally, one hundred percent in love with Trent. So, even though I can’t find the nerve to follow up with Alessandro, I finally get up the nerve to send a text I should have sent months ago. I pick up my phone and start typing from memory the speech I’d rehearsed so many times before Christmas.
I’m taking my best friend’s advice and telling the man I love how I feel about him. I’m in love with you, Trent. I think I may have always loved you. The way fate brought us together was sort of cruel, but maybe when fate gets its chance, it has to take it. Maybe your becoming my brother was the only way fate could guarantee we’d find each other. All I know is, if there’s one person in this world that I was meant to meet and fall in love with, it’s you. You are my soul mate. You always have been. When we’re apart, it’s like a vital piece of me is missing. I can survive without you, but I can’t live. I can’t be fully alive. I love you with every fiber in my body. I love you with my whole heart. No matter what happens between us from here, I just thought you should know.
I don’t even read it over before hitting SEND, afraid that if I do, I’ll chicken out.
A minute later, my phone buzzes, and my heart stalls. I cringe, scared to flipped it over and look at the screen. The way I see it, this can only go one of two ways. It’s either Trent telling me he loves me too, or telling me that I’m delusional. I mean, when your stepsister confesses her undying love, there’s not much middle ground.
I turn the phone slowly in my hand, still cringing, and looking at the screen through slitted eyes. Maybe if I only partially see it, it won’t bite so hard. But when I see who it’s from, my heart stalls again.
Sam.
Shit.
Was she with him when I sent that? I remember going through Rick’s texts when he got out of bed to go to the bathroom. Are they in bed together? Is Trent in the bathroom peeling off his condom?
Stop. Just stop.
I can drive myself crazy wondering, or I can open the damn text. I open the damn text.
Hey gurl! Do you know if Trent likes the beach or the mountains better? Booking a romantic getaway for when we get home for break.
They’re not together. But, shit.
It’s as if she knows I just told her boyfriend I love him. This is her way of making me feel like the girls in Rick’s texts—the ones who are just skanky enough to go after someone else’s man. That’s me, Lexie the skank.
Damn.
I don’t answer. I can’t.
So: Trent, Alessandro, Sam … I’m running out of friends to totally alienate and humiliate. I’m going to die without a friend in this world, then burn in hell for all eternity. Just what I deserve.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I ALMOST WENT to Easter Mass to find out what Alessandro decided, but then I realized that, if he decided to go through with the ordination, the last person he’d want to see there would be me.
But I can’t stand not knowing.
It’s Tuesday, and the hordes of summer tourists haven’t descended on Rome yet, so navigating the streets to the rectory is pretty quick. My feet stall, and my insides quiver harder when it comes into sight, just across from the church where everything started.
I know what I need to tell him if he’s there. I need to apologize for leading him on and making him question everything he believes in. I need to tell him it was horrible and selfish, and I hope he can forgive me someday. I need him to know that I was
serious when I told him he would make an amazing priest. He has all the qualities of someone who can truly make a difference in this world.
Part of me hopes I get the chance to tell him all this, while another part of me hopes I don’t.
I’m shaking as I lift my hand to knock, and a few seconds later, when the door swings open, I’m wound so tight that I nearly jump out of my skin. But it’s not Alessandro. Standing there in the doorway is a very round man with a round nose and big, round, blue eyes in the middle of a round face. He’s in a full cassock and white collar.
“Can I be of assistance?” he asks with a wide smile, and instantly I recognize the sandpaper voice of Father Reynolds.
I’m afraid to speak, knowing the minute I open my mouth, he’ll have a face to go with everything I’ve confessed. “I’m … I’m looking for the Reverend Moretti.”
“Ah,” he says, and I can tell from the way his eyes change, widen a little, and shine brighter, that he knows who I am. “I’m sorry, but the reverend is no longer at this parish.”
“Oh … did he—” I’m about to ask if he was ordained on Sunday when I really hear what he just said. He called Alessandro the reverend. My stomach knots harder. He didn’t go through with it. “Do you know where he went?”
“He needed some more time for reflection. He asked to return to Corsica, to his family parish under Father Costa.”
“Father Costa,” I repeat with a nod. “Okay … good.” He went home. This is good. Maybe he’ll regroup there. Maybe he’ll be okay. “Well, thank you, Father.”
“God be with you,” he says.
“And also with you.” I back away from the rectory and move across the street to the church.
This whole experience has been sobering. The church is Alessandro’s conviction. He’s pledged his life to it, and now that he’s questioning that … maybe because of me, it makes me realize how little I’ve truly taken any of it to heart. Isn’t the upshot of all this just to be a better person? If I’d tried to be a better person—to live by Alessandro’s ideals—would any of this have happened?
I dip my fingers in the holy water and cross myself, then make my way to a pew up front and kneel. The place is nearly empty, a few tourists wandering the frescoes and no one else. The confessionals are roped off today.
I stare up at Jesus on the cross and breathe deep. “Dear Lord, please look after Alessandro. He’s a good man. Please help him to find his path again, whatever it is. Please let him find happiness.” I bow my head and close my eyes as a tear leaks over my lashes. “More than anyone else I know, he deserves to be happy.”
I wipe my face and pull myself up, then turn for home. And the whole way, I picture Alessandro in the restaurant on the beach at L’Île-Rousse. I imagine him looking out over the ocean and remembering why he wanted to be a priest in the first place. I picture him forgetting I ever existed. I can’t deny there’s a pang in my heart at the thought, but I also know that’s what needs to happen.
I feel a little lighter as I walk home, and for the first time in days, food is tempting. I stop at a café and pick up a few currant croissants, one of which I nibble as I stroll over the cobbles. A taxi careens past, and I jump onto the sidewalk to avoid becoming roadkill, but as I watch it go, I can’t help remembering my introduction to Rome, in the back of a different careening taxi. That feels like a lifetime ago. I’m really going to miss this place when I leave. Now, I just have to decide when that’s going to be.
I got the internship. I found out yesterday. It’s what I wanted more than anything, but now I’m not sure what to do. Because of Alessandro, I know I want to work with children. I want that kid-at-Christmas feeling every day. I want to work somewhere I can bring kids and art together. I want to make art fun for them. I want them to love art as much as I do. Nothing else I can imagine would be as awesome as helping build a collection at a children’s museum so that kids find art in a way that matters to them. This internship would be great on my resume—give me a leg up.
But without Alessandro, Rome feels a little emptier.
I didn’t realize until now how much my desire to stay in Rome was tied to him. I’m not sure my heart is really up for being here for three more months without him. I have a week to decide if I’m going to accept the internship. But if I don’t, that means I’m going home.
It’s been three days since I sent the text to Trent. Three days that I’ve been stalking my phone, waiting for something. Anything. A text. A call. So far nothing. I don’t want to believe he’s so mad or so shocked that, even after I poured my heart out to him, he can’t bring himself to respond, but that seems to be the case. Which means I’ll probably stay for the internship because I can’t go home. Not now.
I can’t go home.
The thought sits like a cold stone in my stomach.
When I turn the corner for my apartment, I’m too preoccupied to notice the scooter parked outside my front door. But when I realize it’s parked illegally on the sidewalk, I look at the bar to see if it’s open early. I catch sight of a foot tapping on the sidewalk in the alcove of my doorway, and my breath catches in my throat.
Because I know that boot.
I round the corner and peer in, not daring to let myself believe it until I see him sitting there.
Trent is leaning back into my door in a black T-shirt and faded jeans, looking every inch as beautiful as he does every night in my dreams. He stands slowly when he sees me, and tugs the earbuds out of his ears, draping the cord around his neck, but he doesn’t move closer. The skin around his eyes tightens as he squints a question at me. “I got your text.”
I hear Lifehouse’s “All In” drifting faintly from Trent’s earbuds, and my heart kicks hard in my chest. Is he going all in? Is that why he came? “What are you doing here?” I breathe.
He shrugs and gives me that lazy smile that’s always turned me to mush. “I was hoping that was obvious.”
My thoughts and feelings are a chaotic jumble that I can’t make heads or tails of, but the one emotion that is easily distinguishable in the raging torrent is relief. An involuntary whimper leaves my chest, and I choke back the relieved sob that accompanies it. Trent steps forward and folds me into his arms.
There’s no stopping it, the urge to be close to him. I press up on my tiptoes, looping my hand around his neck, and bring him down to kiss me. His kiss is slow and sure, and only now do I realize how much I’ve longed for it. I was trying to find a substitute in Alessandro—a substitute confidant, a substitute lover, a substitute best friend. But the only person who could ever be all those things is standing right here in front of me.
We don’t break our kiss as Trent shrugs his duffel onto his shoulder, and I rifle through my purse for my key, or when I push him through the door. The stairs are a little trickier, but Trent solves the conundrum by lifting me into his arms. I wrap my legs around his waist, and he carries me up and through the door at the top.
He sets me down and looks around. I answer his unasked question by grabbing his hand and leading him to the bedroom. Our shirts are on the floor before we even make it there. He pauses just a second to drop his duffel on the floor and grab a condom out of the side pocket, and I take that second to admire his amazing, bare chest, but then we’re moving toward the bed. One of my flats comes off with my thong, but my skirt is around my waist and his jeans haven’t made it below his thighs when we flop sideways across the bed. A second later, we’re making love.
It feels like an eternal itch is finally being scratched. No one else could satisfy that itch. No one but Trent.
He teases me, pressing deep inside of me, then pulling his length back to the tip and stopping.
“Please,” I beg, pulling him closer.
He smiles into my shoulder. “Patience is a virtue, Lexie.”
I sweep my fingers down his back, drawing him deeper into me. “You know damn well I have no virtue.”
He grins and kicks off his jeans, then unzips my skirt and slides over
my hips. He situates himself on his knees between my legs and looks down at me with pure hunger in his eyes. With every beat of my racing heart, I throb for him. I reach for him and squeeze, and he closes his eyes and moans. He lifts my hips and presses his length slowly inside me and I hear myself purr a moan, but then he withdraws and rubs his tip over my clit, making me gasp. He thrusts into me again, sending pulsating shock waves through my insides, and I cry out.
He teases me more, rubbing circles over my clit with his fingers until I scream with want. “God, please.” It comes out as a whimper, and his smile is wicked. But he gives me what I want. He slides into me, thick and hot, and pumps. Each thrust is a little faster and a little deeper, until I’m howling inhumanly with the sensations flooding through my body.
“Christ, Lexie,” he groans, all humor gone from his face. His roaming mouth finds mine, and when I open, his tongue slips through my lips. As he kisses me, he hooks his elbows through my knees and pumps against me, each thrust sending a fresh shock wave through my insides.
I cry out, one long “Ahhhh,” as the electric tingle in my belly ramps up, and all the muscles in my groin contract around him, holding on, begging for more. Pleasure pulses through me on waves of bliss as the tension builds, and he brings me to climax. I explode around him, over and over, until all coherent thought leaves me, and I dissolve into nothing but sensation. Every touch sets off sparks under my skin, every moan boils my blood, every thrust sends my body into a spin. We’re both slick with sweat half an hour later, when he growls with his last thrust and goes still, deadweight on top of me.
But the instant it’s over, the guilt hits me like a tidal wave.
As soon as my body stops shaking enough that I have control over it again, I dump him on the mattress and sit on the edge of the bed. My guts tighten into a hard knot when I think about Dad and Julie. I want this more than anything, but how? “What are we doing, Trent?”
A Little Too Far Page 22
